I do not disagree. However, at times, one runs into a situation like scientology can be where there is a cult mentality that includes a persecution complex. Any attempt to teach the truth is resisted and they will not listen to anything against their own faith. In that case, what do you do?
well, you DONT increase their sense of persecution by, y’know, actually persecuting them. Counterproductive, doncha know.
That means…you don’t attack their beliefs. You don’t call them ‘bunkum.’ You don’t go telling them what they ‘really’ believe (if only because as soon as you get one tiny thing wrong, they’ll grab onto that like starving cats on tuna) and use that to prove that you are wrong about everything. Add to this the probability that you will get considerably more than tiny things wrong (I’ve never met an anti yet that actually presented the beliefs of their target correctly), then the only option you DO have is to simply present what you believe to be the truth.
Don’t say (I’m a Mormon, so I’m giving you examples from my own experience) “Joseph Smith was a fraud and a liar and you aren’t Christians and you all are going to go to hell.” That sort of thing isn’t going to make people want to listen to you.
After all, we’ve heard that already. We have answers to those things–and so does everybody else who has had antis and critics come at them.
Instead, show us what you believe gives you joy. I can absolutely guarantee you that if you are a ‘true’ Christian/Catholic, that when you go to Mass you are NOT defining what you feel and learn there by what the Mormons think. I’ll bet you don’t even consider what Mormons believe when you are about to take communion.
If you do, then you’ve got a far bigger problem than I have.
So; share what you believe. Share your joy. Share what you have learned. pretend that you not only have NO clue what your listener believes, but that what he believes is irrelevant to what Christ can give you.
Because it is irrelevant.
THEN you might have a chance to get through. Perhaps not at first, but oh, what a seed you might plant! Y’see, people belong to such belief systems because they find acceptance, purpose and a real sense of self there; a sense of safety. Those folks are not going to leave that for an unknown and untaught land, anymore than a drowning man will leave a waterlogged raft for the blank open ocean.
So what you do is show him the yacht he can swim to; his choice. You don’t have to point out that his raft is sinking. He’ll figure that out all by himself.
At the risk of being clobbered, I can tell you that I know this works because that’s how we do it. We teach Catholics EXACTLY the way we teach Muslims or Lutherans or Wiccans or Hindus or Baptists. We simply let them know what we believe. We figure that they know their own beliefs far better than we ever could, so the best people to do the comparing is…them.
I sure can’t tell it because anybody else works that way, because in all my years nobody has ever actually tried that with me. As soon as they find out I’m LDS…oops. All chance that I ever had to learn what THEY think and believe is utterly lost, except in one area.
(grin) I have to admit, I know a BUNCH about what Catholics and Protestants believe–about Mormonism.
Mind you, their version very seldom has anything in common with the Mormonism I’m familiar with. I don’t think that’s quite the way it’s supposed to work though, is it?
